New Staff Brings Renewed Energy to the Harvard Center for Children's Health
Recently the staff at the Harvard Center for Children's Health (HCCH) helped plan a meeting with the Washington-based Health Services for Children to address the challenges facing a particularly vulnerable population--children with special needs in low-income families.
The meeting was convened to brainstorm creative ideas on how to maintain and improve access to health care for these children, especially at a time when some special-needs programs are being slashed from health care budgets. The meeting is typical for the center's staff, whose mission is to use research to influence policy and practice to improve children's lives.
This year, the center's efforts are spearheaded by four new employees under the guidance of Marie McCormick, director of the center and Sumner and Esther Feldberg Professor of Maternal and Child Health in the Department of Maternal and Child Health.
"They're bringing new ideas and different directions to the center," said McCormick. "The new folks are allowing us to pursue new activities, particularly with community-based programs."
For more about the center, visit www.hsph.harvard.edu/children/index.html.
Julie GoldmanJulie Goldman began her job as director of programs and operations at the center last March. A graduate of Brown University, Goldman has worked for both Brigham and Women's Hospital and the American Cancer Society, and has been a long-term volunteer for the Massachusetts Public Health Association.
She received a master's degree in social work from Case Western Reserve University and a master of science degree from HSPH's Department of Maternal and Child Health. While an HSPH student, Goldman helped collect data for Planet Health.
At HCCH this fall, Goldman is involved in several projects. In October, the center resumed its Early Life Working Group Seminar Series, a monthly seminar series that addresses a variety of maternal and child health topics to which all faculty and students are invited. She is working on a conference about the issues that face youth with disabilities as they transition into adulthood and is in the process of organizing a conference on newborn screening and genetics that would discuss the role of DNA testing.
Goldman said one of her goals is to get students more involved in the center's work. To that end, she helped organize a walk project in Cambridge in October in which student volunteers provided health care information to parents and their kids.
Mary Ellen Yates
Mary Ellen Yates is the director of the program in capacity building at the center. Like Goldman, she started last March. She has a doctoral degree from the University of California, San Francisco and spent four years working at private research institutes in New England. She also spent a year teaching in a middle school, and has worked in many community service organizations.
The goal of the capacity building program, said Yates, is to assist community-based organizations in strengthening their abilities to evaluate their programs and projects so that they can improve their services to the communities they serve. Yates is coordinating the evaluations of specific community programs, developing a synthesis on research in the area of program interventions, and training students and organizations in evaluation and program planning.
A student intern program is also being developed to provide students with hands-on evaluation experience in public health programs.
"We take information from academia and help put it into community practice," said Yates.
Chris TaylorChris Taylor is manager of administration and finance and works at both HCCH and in the Department of Maternal and Child Health. She said her job is to marshal human and financial resources to ensure they are being put to the best use.
Taylor came to HCCH in August from the main Harvard campus in Cambridge, where she worked in Operations Services. She has a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin.
She said that HSPH appealed to her because she liked the idea of working in a department that was doing "good and necessary work."
Melissa Thumm
Melissa Thumm is a research assistant who started at the center in June. Thumm graduated from Brown University with a degree in history but shifted into public health through her own natural interest. She previously worked at a homeless shelter in Jamaica Plain, serving as an advocate for the children and their parents and creating educational programs for them.
At the center, Thumm is leading the organizational effort for one of the center's most recognized events--the presentation of the Award for Excellence in Children's Health. The award, sponsored by HCCH, Children's Hospital in Boston, and the City of Boston, provides $10,000 to one program in Boston that has demonstrated outstanding work in promoting the healthy development of children. The ceremony is next month.
Thumm is also working with Mary Ellen Yates in the area of evaluation research.
